Shattered
by Separate Entity
Summary: "I-I tried to stop it," she gasped, "but Celestial bronze doesn't work on mortals." Rated M for themes and language. When Katie Gardner showed up at my door, her life had just been turned upside down. She turned my life on its head too, for good measure. I'll never be able to thank her for it.
1. Prologue: Chick Flicks

**Prologue**

**Hi, everyone!**

**Here's the story behind Shattered: I wrote about 55000 words of it during NaNoWriMo 2012. Then I stopped. It is currently about 80% written, and will most likely be about 75k words. I'm finishing it as I go, and I hope to be able to fill in and edit enough to post one chapter a week until it's done at maybe 35 chapters. Unless there's a plot bunny, which there probably will be. Then, it will most likely be a bit longer. Tl;dr: thanks for reading! More to come on Sunday!  
>Happy Reading,<br>Sep  
><strong>

**This story is mainly going to be from Travis's and Katie's perspective first person with a few others as needed. I hope you like it.**

**At this point, Travis is twenty-two, Connor is twenty, and Katie is twenty-two as well. **

**Prologue: Chick Flicks. Friday, the fifth of August, two thousand eleven. Travis.**

**The character names of The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series are owned by Rick Riordan. The original content, ideas and intellectual property of this story are owned by Separate Entity, two thousand fourteen. Please do not copy, reproduce, or translate without express written permission.**

**Content Warnings for the chapter: language and blood.**

The day I died started out uneventfully.

Friday night. The fifth of August, two thousand eleven. Close enough to the war with the giants to still give me nightmares sometimes. Connor and I were sitting on my couch, eating popcorn and watching The Parent Trap. No, we did not like chick flicks. Well, I couldn't speak for my brother, but… Whatever. Really, though, we watched this one for the pranks. Who knew girls could be so inventive? Actually, never mind that. _We_ knew. We had sisters.

See, I bet you were freaking out just now. Wait, Travis, you're going to _die_ in this story? Hah, I can't believe you fell for that! _Fangirls_. No, I didn't really die. But something big _did_ happen that day. Something that changed my life forever. But enough with the dramatics. On with the story.

"Can you imagine what would happen if Mr. D walked in on one of _our_ pranks like that head counselor?" Connor asked, shoving a handful of buttery goodness into his mouth.

I laughed, then winced. "We'd be toast," I said. "Burnt toast. Or maybe burnt dolphin toast. Pass the popcorn."

"I finished it."

"_Gods_, Connor! That's the third one! Go make some more."

My brother flung a fistful of kernels at me, then left the living room. A moment later I heard the microwave whir to life. Turning my head back to the television, I was just in time to see Miss Whatever-Her-Name-Was sentence the twins to the isolation cabin. I winced. Even Cabin Eleven wasn't in as bad shape as that shack was, and at least we never had to worry about rain.

The thunder onscreen was the reason I missed the first few bangs at the apartment door. What I didn't miss was Connor yelling for me to answer it.

I did not know why I bothered answering the door. At this late hour, the only possible person it could be was crazy old Mrs. Evans from the apartment downstairs. Though, to be fair, she did make excellent cookies. Almost as good as the ones at camp, but not quite.

I peeked through the peephole. Peeped through the peekhole? Whatever. It was a girl, and after a moment I recognized her as Katie Gardner, a daughter of Demeter that I knew from camp. How did she know where I lived?

I opened the door and she all but fell in. I gave her a brief look. She was wearing a sleeveless white dress with an abstract red pattern. Her hair was tangled like hydra heads, and she only had one shoe on.

Katie stumbled again, and this time I caught her. That was when the smell hit me. The red on Katie's dress wasn't a pattern at all. _She was bleeding._

"Connor!" I yelled.

"The popcorn's not ready yet, you nincompoop!"

"Connor, this isn't about the godsdamned popcorn! Get some ambrosia over here, now!"

I turned my attention back to the girl in my arms. "Katie? What happened? What kind of monster did this to you?" I was running through the possibilities in my head. Katie still had all her limbs attached. There weren't any scorch marks that I could see, and no evidence of poison. A hellhound, maybe?

"I-I tried to stop it," she gasped, "but Celestial bronze doesn't work on mortals."


	2. 1: Swearing like a Brit

**Chapter one: Swearing like a Brit. Friday, the fifth of August, two thousand eleven. Travis**

**The character names of The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series are owned by Rick Riordan. The original content, ideas and intellectual property of this story are owned by Separate Entity, two thousand fourteen. Please do not copy, reproduce, or translate without express written permission.**

**Content Warnings for the chapter: Language, blood, and nudity**

"Katie?" I asked, but right then, she went limp in my arms. _Great_, I thought, _not only am I standing here with a bleeding girl, I'm standing here with a bleeding _unconscious_ girl. And now I'm thinking like a swearing Brit._ "Connor, where are you?" I yelled again, partly to distract myself from my mental rambling.

While I waited I gave Katie a closer look-over. She had a cut on her lip, as if she'd bitten it. Her hands were scratched, and one of the fingernails on her right hand looked torn off. The rest were painted sparkly gold. There were bruises forming on her wrists and shoulders and, judging from the blood dripping past her knee and leaking through her dress, she must have had a few cuts on her legs or stomach. Most frightening was the blood on the back of her head. Head injuries … those were the worst.

"What in all of Hades is going on here?" my brother demanded as he finally entered the tiny mudroom. In one hand he held a bag of popcorn; in the other was our trusty first-aid kit. The little space was getting quite crowded, really.

"I'll let you know as soon as I find out," I said. "Come on. Kitchen. Now." I pushed Connor out ahead of me, then paused to get a better grip on Katie. It would have been much easier to get her fixed up if she was awake, but I couldn't do anything about that now. The kitchen table was the closest thing we had to a cot; we would have to make it work. And at least Katie was light.

Connor took a few steps forward, then stopped and turned to face me. His eyes widened. Then an intense pained expression settled over his features. "Travis," he said again, "what in all of _Hades_ is going on here? And why are you holding a bloody girl?"

_British swears_, I thought again despite myself. "I still don't know," I told him. "She just showed up at the door. I asked her why she was bleeding but she just muttered something about Celestial bronze not working on mortals and collapsed."

"Celestial bronze not working on mortals? That's nothing new. Every demigod knows it. Is that Katie Gardner?"

"Connor, as delightful as this conversation is, she's still bleeding. We need to give her some ambrosia and nectar and fix her up." I stepped around my brother and entered the kitchen. "Help me get her on the table?" I asked him.

"Umm, Travis?" Connor asked, "you know she's bleeding, right?"

"That's the freaking _point_," I exclaimed, starting to get angry.

"And if we put her on the table, there will be blood on the table. Let's do this in the bathroom."

"Do _you_ want to carry her?"

Connor didn't even answer. He just took Katie from my arms and headed to the bathroom leaving me to grab the first-aid kit.

Connor deposited Katie in the bathtub and held the girl's head up while I trickled nectar in her mouth, waited for her to swallow, and then gave her another sip. Her face relaxed almost immediately, and a bit of color returned to it. The scratches on her hands began to close. I released a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "Thank the gods for nectar," I said.

Connor nodded in agreement, but I saw pain flash across his face again, and this time it remained in his eyes. I sighed. "We should probably get her cleaned up," I said. Connor nodded again. "Hey," I said. "You okay, bro?"

Again, he didn't answer. Instead he extended his hand and ran his fingers from her neck to her left shoulder and then down her left hip. I looked on, confused. "She's still got … stuff … on under the dress," Connor said by way of explanation. He began to slide the bloody garment off her body.

"All right," I said. I turned to get a few washcloths. From behind me, Connor swore violently.

"Travis," he said, "you'd better take a look at this."

"What's going on?" I asked, returning with the towels. At first glance, I didn't see what he was talking about. Katie was lying supine in the tub, wearing only a bra and underwear. A few more bruises were visible, but none looked serious enough to get that kind of reaction out of my brother. I looked again, more closely. Then my hands clenched into fists. There were hand-shaped marks on Katie's hips, and her underwear was stained red. I looked up at Connor. "Do you think...?" I found myself unable to finish the sentence.

Connor shrugged. "I don't know. But ..." He trailed off.

"Let's just wash her off. She can tell us what happened when she wakes up."

I turned on the hot water. Slowly, carefully, Connor and I rinsed the blood off her body and out of her hair. When we turned her body over, I saw a riot of bruises on her back. Whatever had happened to her, whoever had done this, she'd been banged into something pretty hard.

Once she was clean and her old dress was in the wash with the washcloths, Connor and I shared an awkward pause. "I'm going to guess you haven't been cross-dressing lately," my brother said without preamble. I just stared at him. "What I'm saying is," Connor said quickly, "she needs something to wear. We're not leaving her like this."

"Give me a second," I said. I left the bathroom and went into Connor's bedroom, and rifled through his drawers until I found an old T-shirt and pair of sweatpants that had shrunk in the wash. "Catch," I said, entering the room again. Connor examined the clothes for a second and then nodded.

"Hold her up for me?"

I obliged. As we wrestled the shirt over her head, I wondered if this was what fashion designers felt like dressing up dummies. I doubted it. Katie may have been light, but she wasn't made out of hollow plastic. Or whatever it was dummies were made out of. Do I look like a designer to you? Didn't think so.

Once she was dressed again, I picked Katie up again, carried her into the living room, and laid her down on the couch. The clock on the TV caught my eye: it was almost two. At least I didn't have to work tomorrow. "I'll keep an eye on her," I told Connor. "You can clean the kitchen and go to bed."

"Why am I always the one cleaning the kitchen?" Connor asked.

"Because you make the bigger mess."

"Do not!"

"Oh, just shut your mouth, Connor," I said. "Denial is not just a river in Egypt."

Connor stomped out of the room in mock anger. I sat down in front of the couch with a sigh. It was going to be a long night.

**CUE THE LINE BREAK. IT GOES HERE.**

Katie and I hadn't been all that close at camp. In fact, I rarely saw her outside of capture-the-flag, or war council meetings—we had both been head counselors. Though, to be honest, I had spent most of those council meetings lighting things on fire.

We had played some pretty awesome pranks on Demeter's cabin over the years, though. The best one had to be the exploding pomegranates.

Flash back to mid July of two thousand five. Percy Jackson had just gone on his first quest, stopped World War III, blah, blah, blah. As far as Hermes's cabin was concerned, all that mattered was that we were running out of time to pull pranks before we were stuck with just the year-rounders.

Now, the Demeter cabin had a small orchard behind it with all kinds of fruit trees—oranges, apples, olives, lemons, you name it. The tree of interest for this particular prank was the pomegranate tree, because the fruit was almost ready to be picked. (We learned this tidbit from my half-sister Delilah, who had a friend who was a daughter of Demeter.)

One Tuesday, while the Demeter kids had archery, half of the Hermes cabin left sword practice early and snuck into the orchard. As quickly as we could, we picked every last pomegranate and replaced each one with special fake pomegranates that we'd put together the night before. Then we went back to sword class and waited.

Thursday morning of that week the camp woke to the sound of shrieking from Cabin Four. Everyone from Cabin Eleven was up in a start, which was practically a miracle. We headed out the door to observe our success.

We were not disappointed. Everything within fifteen feet of the tree—the grass, other trees, the cabin and campers—was dripping with pink, green, blue or yellow paint.

The trick "pomegranates" had been paint grenades, rigged together so that as soon as one was picked, they'd all explode. At the next council meeting, Katie's face was still the same color as the Wicked Witch of the West's.

A noise pulled me out of my reverie. A soft voice, just one word. "Travis?"

Katie was awake.


	3. 2: Tall Boys

**Here's the story behind Shattered: **

**I wrote about 55000 words of it during NaNoWriMo 2012. Then I stopped. It is currently about 80% written, and will most likely be about 75k words. I'm finishing it as I go, and I hope to be able to fill in and edit enough to post one chapter a week until it's done at maybe 35 chapters. Unless there's a plot bunny, which there probably will be. Then, it will most likely be a bit longer. **

**Tl;dr: thanks for reading! More to come on Sunday!**

**Happy Reading, Sep**

**Chapter Two: Tall Boys. Saturday morning, the sixth of August, two thousand eleven. Katie.**

**The character names of The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series are owned by Rick Riordan. The original content, ideas and intellectual property of this story are owned by Separate Entity, two thousand fourteen. Please do not copy, reproduce, or translate without express written permission.**

**Content Warnings: This chapter contains mature language, blood, and rape. May contain triggers. Also, eating chicken, which may offend vegetarians.**

Blood dripping from my fingers. Screaming, in a voice that I didn't recognize. Pain, pounding in my head, squeezing my wrists, slamming at my back. And another pain, worse than all the others, that was like a dagger in my gut.

It took me a while to become aware of my surroundings. I was lying on my back, on something soft, with another something supporting my head. I took a breath and smelled popcorn. I opened my eyes slowly. I was lying on a brown fabric couch, with a pillow under my head. There was a familiar-looking boy sitting on the floor next to the couch, a boy with messy dark brown hair and closed eyes. Where was I?

I tried to sit up and regretted it immediately. Pain shot through my body and it took all my willpower not to scream. Tears welled in my eyes.

I remembered now. The pain. The betrayal. Running through the night, climbing stairs, pounding on a green-painted door. Travis Stoll opening the door. That's who the boy was. Travis. I'd been wrong to call him a boy; he was just as old as I was. But the way he acted, along with the ever-present mischievous glint in his eye, always made me think of him as younger.

"Travis?" I asked.

At the sound of his name, Travis jerked upright, staring at me. "Katie?" he said, his tone verging on incredulous. "Katie, are you okay?" He extended a hand and placed it on my wrist.

Just like that, I froze. I wasn't in the little living room anymore. I wasn't on the couch. I was in an alley, pinned against rough brick with rough hands pinning my wrists together. Instead of Travis's brown eyes, I was gazing into pale blue irises full of anger.

I cringed away from the contact, and then I was back on the couch. I gasped for air. "Katie, I'm _sorry_," Travis whispered. "What's the matter? Did I hurt you?"

I felt like a hand was squeezing my chest and another was crushing my throat. I heard a choked sob and realized it came from me. I looked Travis in the eye, and shook my head no.

"Katie, what's wrong?" he asked again.

I began crying in earnest. I didn't want to tell him. I wanted so badly for all of this to just be a nightmare, but the pain in my body dispelled all illusions.

Travis was still talking. "Are you still in pain? We gave you some nectar while you were unconscious, but I think it's safe to give you a little more now."

Still unable to speak, I just nodded. "Okay," he said, and got up off the floor, presumably to go wherever it was the ambrosia was kept. Had I just called him a boy? He was huge, at least a foot taller than my own five feet three inches. _Tall and lanky_, I thought with a trace of bitterness.

As he turned to leave the room, panic shot through me. I didn't want to be alone in this room. I didn't want to be alone with my memories. "Wait," I said, surprised by the desperation in my voice.

"Katie-girl," Travis said with a half smile, "if you want ambrosia, I have to go get it."

"Wait for me," I said, "I'm coming with." Gingerly, I stood up. Physical pain was preferable to emotional pain, no questions asked. Still, it hurt. I gritted my teeth as pain spread through my body. If Travis knew, he might have made me lie back down. I must not have controlled my face as well as I'd hoped, though, because Travis reached out to steady me. Again, I flinched away from his touch, and his smile disappeared.

"Sorry," he said.

I shook my head. "Don't apologize. I'm just a little … skittish."

Travis seemed to accept my answer. He shrugged and led me into the kitchen. "Sorry about the mess," he said, shoving a stack of dirty plates into the sink.

"Didn't I just say not to apologize?" I asked. Travis smiled that half smile again, and I felt the pressure in my throat lessen.

"Here you go," Travis said, procuring a square of ambrosia out of a baggie. I took a bite, tasting olive pizza.

"Thanks," I said, brushing a crumb off my shirt. A shirt, I realized with a start, that wasn't mine. The sweatpants I was wearing weren't mine either. I flashed Travis a shocked look. "Where are my clothes?" I asked him.

"Your dress was all bloody. I put it in the laundry, but I'm not sure if it'll help. The stuff that you've got on now is Connor's. He's shorter than I am."

I might've smiled at that, if I hadn't still been grappling with the fact that I'd been undressed while I was unconscious. I tried to focus on something else. "Connor lives here, too?" I asked. "I thought I heard you calling him when I came in, but…"

"Yeah, he lives here. He's asleep right now. I took first watch." He winked at me.

"What time is it, anyways?" I asked.

"Umm … about three-thirty," Travis said. "You showed up a little after midnight. Are you hungry or something?"

I nodded. He nodded back. "I don't know what we have in the fridge, but you're welcome to it."

"Thank you," I said.

We sat across from each other at his table and ate leftover shawarma. It was like a chicken wrap, but with weird spices. For a while there was no sound but chewing; then Travis spoke up. "Katie?"

I tensed, bracing myself for any of the obvious questions—_how did you get here? what happened to you?_ or the now-expected _are you okay?_—but all he said was, "You've got sauce on your cheek." I blushed, part embarrassed and part relieved, and wiped the offending smear away.

The kitchen windows were letting in a touch of pre-dawn light when Travis let out an enormous yawn. "I'm sorry," I said, "I'm keeping you up."

"Naw," Travis brushed me off. "I'm not working tomorrow. That's why I'm here instead of Connor."

"I'm kind of tired," I said, mostly so he could get to bed. I felt guilty stealing his sleep. "I can go back and sleep on the couch. You don't have to stay and watch me; I'm not planning on disappearing in the middle of the night."

Travis was shaking his head before I'd said two sentences. "I can't let a girl sleep on the couch. Call it what you will. You'll sleep in my room."

I tried to protest—Travis had already been sitting on the floor for hours, and hadn't I just been sleeping on the couch anyways?—but he wouldn't hear a word of it.

He led me to his room and I sat on the edge of the bed, looking up at Travis, who was standing in the doorway. His tall frame blocked most of the light, but I saw the hesitant expression on his face when he spoke. "Katie-girl? If you want to-to … talk about it, whatever happened, I'm here, okay? You don't have to say anything if you don't want to, but if you do…"

Tears stung my eyes, and I wasn't entirely sure if they were because of the question, or how Travis had asked it. "I can't, Travis. I'm sorry." And I really was.

Travis looked like he'd expected this answer. "Sleep well, Katie girl," he said, and walked away.

I was alone. I was alone, but I didn't _feel_ alone. On this bed, wrapped in these blankets, it felt like Travis was still in the room. I closed my eyes.

**CUE THE LINE BREAK. IT GOES HERE.**

It was only seconds later that the nightmare began.

A rough grasped my wrists, pinning them to the alley wall behind me. I struggled, but he was just too strong. I tried to scream; the noise was cut off as he mashed his mouth over mine.

I bit his lip. He smashed me against the brick wall and I saw stars.

Two objects glowed bronze in the darkness behind him, but they were out of my reach and useless against him besides. A part of me had retreated deep within myself, watching and sobbing. How could he do this? I had trusted him! _Loved_ him.

This couldn't be happening. I was a demigod, a daughter of Demeter! I was strong. I could fight!

But there were no plants nearby. And my blades went right through him. Being able to fight off dangers in the world hidden by the Mist did not make me invulnerable to the dangers of the mortal world.

The new pain, when it came, made my knees buckle. The added pressure of my body weight on my still-pinned arms was nothing compared to this terror, this anguish, this worst of betrayals. It wasn't supposed to be like this!

He could muffle the sound of my screams, but my tears flowed, silent and unchecked.


	4. 3: My Brother is Not a Cross-Dresser

**Chapter Three: My brother is not a cross dresser. Saturday, the sixth of August, two thousand eleven. Connor.**

**The character names of The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series are owned by Rick Riordan. The original content, ideas and intellectual property of this story are owned by Separate Entity, two thousand fourteen. Please do not copy, reproduce, or translate without express written permission.**

**Content warnings for the chapter Mentions of rape. May contain triggers.**

I woke up early Saturday morning. Don't get me wrong; I'd love to sleep till noon as much as the next male, but I had a deadline in three days and there were still a few bugs to work out of this latest string of code.

If you'd asked me three years ago what I wanted to do for a job, computer programming would never have even been on the list. After all, demigods and technology usually don't mix. But I like codes. They're like keys, and being the son of Hermes gives me a bit of an advantage when it comes to keys, locks, combinations, and all that stuff. Plus, compared to reading English with dyslexia, the random scrambles of letters and numbers are almost easy. It also didn't hurt that my dad had kinda invented the Internet.

I headed to my office with a bowl of cereal shut the door and headed to my desk. I was lucky; the company I worked for paid for Travis's and my apartment. I'd probably have to be a criminal to afford it otherwise. And despite my parentage, I had absolutely no desire to get involved in that sort of crime.

My office wasn't much bigger than a standard cubicle. There was a desk with a computer, and reference books and papers littered every flat surface. There was a bookcase on the back wall. But that was where the similarities to a mortal office ended.

The walls were plated in Celestial bronze, to prevent monsters from finding us. Did they track IPs or something? I wasn't sure, but better safe than sorry. The reference books were mostly in Greek. Where most people had bulletin or dry-erase boards hanging from their office walls, I had a full-size shield. And the bookcase housed Travis's and my weapons stash. Above the computer hung three wall clocks, labeled in Greek: the current time in Greece, the current time here in New York, and the current time in San Francisco.

The New York clock read eight fifteen AM—I'd been up for nearly two hours now—when someone banged on my door. "It's open," I called.

Travis poked his head in. "I'm going out."

I looked a little more closely my brother. His eyes were bloodshot, and he had that look in his eyes. I'd seen it often enough over the years. "Nightmares?" I asked.

He nodded, swallowing hard.

"When did you get to bed?" I asked.

"Katie woke up at a little after three. She went to bed at about five, so…" Travis's eyes went to the clock. "I think it was about two hours ago."

"Dude, what are you even doing up?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Can it, Travis! You know I've got work to do. You _don't_. Get back to bed. _Now_."

He shook his head. Obstinate bastard. "I need to go pick up a few things. Will you keep an eye on Katie for me?"

"Travis, we need to talk about what's going on with her. Has she told you what happened?"

His knuckles turned white on the door frame. "No. But does it even matter? We _know_. Hades, _she_ knows we know. You think she doesn't realize we saw the bruises?"

"We should let the mortal police take care of this. We aren't a halfway house for college girls!" I was getting agitated. Katie showing up was bringing back memories that I wanted to keep far away.

"Connor." Travis's tone was different now. "This isn't going to be a permanent thing. A week, tops. Just so she can get a breather."

"You think wherever she's working or going to school is going to tolerate her disappearing for a week?"

"Connor, it's the beginning of August. Schools don't start for another two, three weeks at least."

"Travis, you know that's not the problem."

"Just keep an eye on her, okay? I'll be back in two hours, tops."

"Okay." I sighed. "I'll check on her. I was going to get a snack soon, anyways."

"She's not on the couch," Travis said. "She's in my room." And with that, he left.

_In his _bedroom_?_ "Obstinate bastard," I muttered. "Obstinate, foolish son of a gorgon."

**CUE THE LINE BREAK. IT GOES HERE.**

At eight forty five I went to check on Katie, but something made me freeze. I heard a rattling sound coming from the kitchen. I slipped of my belt and snapped it out, watching as it stiffened and turned glowing bronze. I walked slowly, silently towards the kitchen.

What I saw was so unexpected, I nearly dropped my weapon. Katie Gardener was standing at the sink, up to her elbows in soapy water, washing a stack of dirty plates. I waited until she had placed the current one on the towel with the other clean stuff before making my presence known. "Good morning," I said.

I could have shot a gun over her head for the reaction my words got me. Katie spun around, back to the sink, gripping a knife in one dripping hand.

"C-c-connor," Katie said, like I'd just barged in on her in her own kitchen instead of mine.

"No," I said sarcastically. "The name's Sean. Have we met?"

Katie let out a shaky laugh. "Sorry," she said, "I woke up a little while ago and I was hungry and you didn't have any clean forks and Travis was gone and I just—"

"Katie," I interrupted, "slow down. I think there are enough clean forks for now. What would you like for breakfast?" As I spoke I tapped the hilt of my sword three times. It went limp and turned the color of leather. I fastened the belt around my waist again.

"What are my options?" Katie asked, finally putting down the knife.

"Well, let me see," I said opening the pantry. "We have cereal, cereal, and … cereal."

"Do you have, like, eggs or anything?"

"Check the fridge."

She did, and pulled out a cardboard carton. "How about cilantro?"

"What?"

"Do you have a spice rack," she asked like I was two instead of twenty.

I pointed it out to her, and she picked out a few jars. She took a frying pan from a cabinet—how did she know where those were?—and placed it on the stove. "Have you eaten this morning?" she asked me.

"I had cereal," I said, feeling defensive for some reason. Katie let out a snort.

"Sit down, cereal boy," she ordered, and I did. I watched as she cracked eggs into a bowl and then opened one of the spice jars. She sprinkled a pile of green flakes into her hand and closed her eyes. The flakes shuddered a bit on her palm, and a whiff of spice hit my nose. "This," Katie said without preamble, "is cilantro. Its related to parsley." And she sprinkled the flakes in with the eggs.

She did the same with each of the spices, pouring them into her hand, doing a little plant voodoo on them, and adding them to the eggs. Then she scrambled the mixture and poured it into the pan.

"I am swearing off of cereal forever," I said, taking another bite of the eggs. "Gods, Katie, you could put every breakfast place within a five block radius out of business with these eggs."

"It's just a hobby," she said. She was leaning against the counter with her own plate of eggs, eating neatly. "Where is Travis, anyways?"

"He had to go pick up some stuff."

There was a bang on the front door, and before I could so much as blink, Katie had replaced the plate in her hand with a knife.

"Relax, Gardner," I said. "It's probably just Travis. I'll get the door." Was it just my imagination, or did something cross Katie's face when I mentioned his name?

Sure enough, it was my brother. He had a couple bags in his hands. "Hey, Connor," he said, "What's that smell?"

"When was the last time you showered?" I asked.

"_Connor_."

"Your little friend is quite the chef," I said by way of explanation. "What's in the bags?"

Travis blushed a little. "Clothes. For Katie. She can't just wear our old stuff."

Travis Stoll bought clothes for a _girl_?

"How do you know what size she wears?" I wanted to know.

"I checked the tag on her dress. It's ruined, by the way. Those bloodstains aren't going anywhere." Travis's face was hard.

I just sighed and shook my head.


	5. 4: My Subconscious is Pissing Me Off

**Chapter Four: My subconscious is really pissing me off. Sunday through Friday, the seventh of August through the twelfth of August, two thousand eleven. Katie.**

**The character names of The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series are owned by Rick Riordan. The original content, ideas and intellectual property of this story are owned by Separate Entity, two thousand fourteen. Please do not copy, reproduce, or translate without express written permission.**

**Content warnings for the chapter Contains minor language, vomiting, and recollection of rape. May contain triggers.**

_The first few kisses were gentle and soft. Sweet. I ran my hands over his shoulders, felt his heart beating through his shirt. "Want to come over tonight?" he asked in that husky voice of his._

_"Patience is a virtue, Max," I said unable to completely keep the smile out of my voice. "My stuff is already at your place. I'm moving in tomorrow, and then we can cuddle all you want."_

_He nipped my earlobe. "You know what I mean," he said, running his hand down my thigh._

_"And you know how I feel about that," I said._

_"Waiting till you get married," he scoffed._

_I just shrugged. The truth was, I wasn't exactly waiting for marriage as much as I was waiting for the guy I wanted to marry. And, for all his charms, Max Rawn wasn't that guy. "Sorry, babe," I said, and kissed him from his jaw to his chin to his lips._

_Something started to go hard in Max right then. His arms tightened around me just for a moment, but he relaxed again and I didn't think anything of it._

_"Let me walk you home," he said._

_I smiled and leaned into him. He left his arm wrapped around my waist as we headed down the sidewalk._

I woke up shuddering. Why hadn't I run then, when I still had the chance?

I felt like the walls of Travis's room were closing in on me. I untangled myself from the covers and slipped out the door into the living room. Travis was there, on the couch, snoring softly. I curled up on the floor beside him and the sound of another pair of lungs, another heartbeat beside me, chased the terrors away, if only for a little while.

When I woke up, light was streaming into the room and Travis was gone. I stood and stretched my aching muscles, then made my way into the kitchen. The smells of rosemary and onion in the frying pan helped mask the smell of fear and dark alley.

I learned from Connor that Travis worked at a grocery store a few blocks away. His schedule at work was erratic; he basically just had to make a certain number of shifts in a month, and the distribution of shifts changed every month. It suited him, Connor explained. "I don't think he could handle doing the same thing every month."

I wanted to smile, but my muscles wouldn't move. I turned back to the sink and began drying glasses.

None of this would have happened if I'd paid more attention. I didn't notice that we weren't headed to my apartment. I didn't notice the turn down the empty side street. And the moment I realized, Max pinned me against a brick wall.

**CUE THE LINE BREAK. IT GOES HERE.**

_I'd run while injured before. I had gotten used to ignoring my body, just putting one foot in front of the other until I reached shelter. This was different. It wasn't just my body that was in pain. My heart ached like a stab wound, and my mind wouldn't stop screaming. How had this happened? I wasn't some sheltered waif, naïve to the ways of the world. I knew how to defend myself; knew to keep my guard up. I guess that after all the years of training, I had forgotten that not all monsters weren't human. _

_Right foot. Left foot. My lips, when I licked them, were salty. I couldn't tell if the moisture was tears or blood._

My eyes flew open. For a few minutes I just sobbed into Travis's pillow. I pried myself out of bed and got dressed. I pulled on one of the pairs of capri pants Travis had bought for me. They were my size, but they were still too loose at the waist. Was I losing weight? The thought that Max's attack was still affecting me physically made me shudder.

Fully dressed, I went out to the couch. Travis was still supine and snoring, though as I watched, he began to twitch and mutter. _He's having a nightmare,_ I realized. I reached out to shake him awake. The moment my hand touched his shoulder, Travis snapped awake. Before I knew what was happening, I was pinned to the carpet next to the couch. Travis was on top of me, his knees on my hips and his hands on my shoulders.

I panicked. I couldn't be pinned down again! I could not let that happen. I brought my head up and forward, smashing it into his. He recoiled, holding his nose, and I pulled free.

I jerked to my feet and bolted to Travis's bedroom, locking the door behind me. "Katie?" Travis's voice echoed through the door. "Dammit, Katie, I'm sorry. Are you okay?" I couldn't answer. Travis's voice came again, softer now. "I'm so sorry, Katie. You took me by surprise. I thought you were a monster. Please tell me you're okay." My throat was still blocked. I heard Travis sigh heavily, and then his footsteps were walking away. I sank to the floor with my back against the door and cried.

**CUE THE LINE BREAK. IT GOES HERE.**

I made Connor breakfast did the dishes and then sat on the couch. I picked up the remote and turned on the television. Nothing was new. Politicians were still disagreeing. Another actress had cheated on her rock star husband. I flipped listlessly through the channels.

I wished I had something to _do_, to keep the memories away. But I hadn't even been able to talk to Connor this morning when I gave him his eggs. The nightmares wouldn't let me forget what had happened the last time I had made myself vulnerable.

It was hard to keep my walls up, but it would have been harder, I thought, to let them down. Travis was being so…_sweet_, so unobtrusive, which was a side of him I definitely hadn't seen at Camp Half-Blood. And Connor would have been easy to talk to, if I was able to talk. But Max was now like a phantom that stalked behind me, paralyzing me and closing my throat.

While Connor and Travis worked, I did my best to straighten up the apartment. I was trying to find a way to pay them back for letting me stay here, and besides, the ability of two guys in their twenties to turn a space into a pigsty is breathtaking. I did not want to know how the object blocking the garbage disposal ended up being a sock full of marbles, and I didn't ask.

I was getting very pissed off at my subconscious self. I had already gone through _it_ once; I didn't need to relive what Max had done to me every night when I slept. The nightmares were wearing me down. Every sound made me jump. My dagger bracelets had been lost that night in the alley, and I wasn't about to go back there to get them, so I felt exposed all the time.

Travis was working all week, so the only times I really saw him were when he was unconscious on the couch. _And so we've come full circle_, I thought one night as I sat on the floor waiting for sleep to come.

Saturday's nightmare was a bad one. I'd stabbed at Max again and again with my daggers, but he couldn't even see them. He'd laughed at me, told me jewelry wouldn't save me, tossed them away as if they were only bangle bracelets. Because to him, of course, that was all they were.

The nightmare hadn't ended there, unlike the others that lasted only a few horrifying minutes. It had gone all the way to the point where Max had left me bleeding on the ground of the alley, zipped up his pants, and sauntered off.

I had woken up shaking and vomited in Travis's garbage can. When I crept into the living room, the couch was empty. Travis must have been working late. I sat down on the floor, because even without Travis snoring, the place had become a comfort.

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**Happy Esther Day!**

**Sep**


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